Tag Archives : writing inspirations

Need some good news today? With the help of my amazing team, I was able to just call and pay the power bill of single mother who has been out of electricity for over a week. We came together and raised the money she needed in just a few hours. Now when she gets home from work she and her three kids will have LIGHTS! This is what it’s all about! I am in shock daily at the situations God is putting me in through this business. It’s about so much more than making money… it’s about hope and rescue!

I’ve made a sort of “silent resolution” with myself to start writing every day (again).

Not necessarily blog, but write…just for the sake of writing…in my journal, on the computer, on a napkin…it doesn’t matter. I used to tell my students, “to be a writer all you have to do is write,” and there are sadly days, weeks, and even months that go by when I don’t take my own advice.

So many parts of me need writing to survive…my brain, my heart and all of my insides swirl with thoughts all day that need an outlet. Sometimes I just need a place to dump them, but most times I long to share and connect them to others, which is why I’ve always loved the blogging world.

I’ve asked before, why is it that we deprive ourselves that which we need to survive?

I make excuses…I don’t have time, I’m too tired, I’m afraid >>> it won’t be good enough, it won’t be perfect and if it’s not good or perfect, then what’s the point? (We all know I’ve “been there/done that” on that particular topic…)

Now is the time to give up the expectations and just write. To write. Because I need it. I love it. I want to share and connect. It makes me happy. And it provides an awesome way to look back and say…oh, yeah…that’s what I was thinking and feeling and loving and hating on that particular day.

And when I feel lost I remember.

I am not lost. I am right here.

In these words that overflow and spill into an awkward, jumbled and sometimes “beautiful” mess.

The aboveimage is from Writing My Way Sober, who described these sticks found on an Oregon coast as, “drift wood, perfectly smoothed and sanded by the elements. Beaten by life – the waves, wind, rocks, sun. I love them.”

She goes on to say, “What I am realizing is that my struggles during the past few weeks are all gifts: events trying to smooth, polish and humble me. Purify me.

‘When we are born our hearts are all shiny and new. As human beings we come into the world with pure hearts. We are created in the image of God. The unabashed wonder and innocence of a child reflects our divine inner nature. Yet, over time the process of life changes the pristine nature of our hearts. Our innocence evaporates. We learn negativity. We say and do things that move us away from our creator’s image. Slowly over time our hearts become filled with things other than God.

We call this process veiling the heart. It is how we begin to feel lost or disconnected. The pain and suffering that troubles our hearts is a direct result of veiling. It has been written that 70,000 veils of both light and dark separate us from the divine light.’

–Kirk Habib Laman

So…when I stumble, I need to remember that each “bad” event can be an opportunity to lift another veil. To smooth another edge.

So I suppose I’ll let the water tumble me, the rocks sand me, the sun bleach me. I’ll become a perfect stick.

“We polish on own lives, creating landscapes and canyons and peaks with the very silt we try to avoid, the dirt we disavow or hide or deny. It is the dirt of our lives–the depressions, the losses, the inequities, the failing grades in trigonometry, the e-mails sent in fear or hate or haste, the ways in which we encounter people different from us–that shape us, polish us to a heady sheen, make us in fact more beautiful, more elemental, more artful, more lasting.” –Patti Digh

…and the process of learning that the dirt of our lives can be smoothed, polished and shined into something beautiful.